The Defense Department on Tuesday released a report documenting the damaging cuts to military forces, modernization and readiness that will be required if defense budgets are held at sequester-levels in the years beyond fiscal 2015.

The report fulfilled a commitment made by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to provide details on the effects of the budget cuts.

“Overall, sequester-level cuts would result in a military that is too small to fully meet the requirements of our strategy, thereby significantly increasing national security risks both in the short- and long-term,” officials said in a news release. “As Secretary Hagel has said, under sequester-level budgets, we would be gambling that our military will not be required to respond to multiple major contingencies at the same time.”

Rose L. Thayer is the military editor for the Killeen Daily Herald. She joined the paper in February 2011 as a health and military reporter. View her complete profile Here. You can contact Rose L. Thayer at rthayer@kdhnews.com or (254) 501-7463. Follow her on Twitter at KDHmilitary.